Bridge of Apple Pies

Bridge of Spies, Stephen Spielberg's latest film, escaped onto DVD and VOD recently. As is usual with Spielberg's films it received some awards attention but in the end won very little with the exception of Mark Rylance's supporting performance. These days Spielberg alternates between lighter, more fun fare (the Indiana Jones films, Tintin etc) and more 'serious' films (Munich, Lincoln) but all exist in an old school Hollywood world that owes very little to the real one. Bridge of Spies falls into the latter category. Tom Hanks heads to Berlin during the early 60s to organise a swap between a Russian spy held by the US government and an American fighter pilot held by the Russian government. Based on a true story, the idea had been floating around Hollywood since the 60s before Spielberg took up the reins.

The problem with Spielberg's supposedly grownup films is that they have the same simplistic mentality as his lightweight outings. Saving Private Ryan's nasty Nazis aren't that far removed from the comedy ones in the Indiana Jones films. Spies' Eastern Bloc bureaucrats wouldn't be out of place in one of Tintin's adventures.

Post E.T. I'm not the biggest fan of Spielberg's output. The last film I actually liked by the director was A.I., all of sixteen years ago. It took a fantasy subject matter and attempted to treat it with all the gravitas he normally would bring to the likes of Schindler's List. The project originated with Stanley Kubrick (by all accounts Spielberg pretty much stuck to Kubrick's script) and A.I. is a unique combination of Kubrick's cold intellectual approach and Spielberg's sentimental feel good one.

A.I. is a science fiction take on the Pinocchio story with a cybernetic boy searching for the robo equivalent of family bliss. While it has major flaws there is enough interesting going on to make it standout in Spielberg's later filmography. Especially fascinating is the climax where, after millennia of searching, our little cyber-hero finally finds happiness for a day and then promptly switches himself off. The message I took from this is that if you've had a good day you might as well go home, find something comfy to sit on, put your head in the oven and turn on the gas. Obviously given the sentimentality of Spielberg's usual endings I presume this wasn't the reaction he was aiming for. He's expecting us to believe that our lovable robo-hero has ascended to cyber-heaven. My thought-he's just made himself about as useful as a broken toaster.

Spielberg films often have an unfinished feel about them. You get the impression that he starts on his next one before finishing the one he's currently making. Schindler's List and Jurassic Park were made simultaneously. Both have some great set pieces (Jurassic's T-rex attack and raptor sequence, Schindler's List's rout of the ghetto) but outside of these sequences there's a perfunctory "this will do" quality to the rest of the films. The beach sequence in Saving Private Ryan is spectacular but what else sticks in the memory? War of the Worlds had that great city destruction scene and...um...

In Bridge of Spies Spielberg and his DOP Janusz Kaminski paint America in cosy, warm browns. Berlin is all unappealing cold, steely greys. Hank's character trudges through the snowy cityscape. Not long after arriving he's mugged for his overcoat. Well it is the cold war.

It would have been just as subtle to give Hanks a white hat to prove the point. I'm guessing it's US good, Eastern Europe bad. Not since Clint Eastwood's American Sniper have I felt so bombarded by pro US sentiment.

Hanks is a good actor in the right role. He was tremendous in Capt. Phillips for example, but in Spies he's on autopilot. With an expression of slight discomfort on his face Hanks stumbles through the role, looking for all the world as if he's eaten something dodgy and is wondering whether he can make the nearest toilet in time. Much was made of the titular bridge sequence being shot at the Glienicke Bridge where the real handover took place. The way Spielberg lights and shoots it, he makes it look like just another expensive Hollywood set.

The nadir of this simplistic approach occurs late in the film. Spielberg reprises an earlier sequence of Hanks watching defectors in Berlin being shot at as they try to climb over the wall. We're back in the good ole USA and this time Hanks is watching children climbing over garden fences, playing. Hanks looks on and finally smiles.

I didn't. Walking out of the cinema I expected to be presented with a free slice of Ma's apple pie. But it wasn't to be.

Maybe Hanks had eaten them all-that would explain his dodgy stomach.


Bridge of Spies trailer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBBuzHrZBro

"The Horror... The Horror..."

Robert Eggers' excellent The Witch must hold the record for the quickest rerelease ever on US cinema screens. Originally released two months ago it didn't do as well as expected at the box office with a misleading ad campaign being blamed for its lack of success. The trailer gave the impression that The Witch is a straightforward horror movie but, disturbing as it is, the film has more in common with Arthur Miller's The Crucible than it does with your typical Hollywood horror fare.

Despite excellent reviews some viewers were disappointed with its lack of traditional horror tropes even though the daemonic goat is one of the creepiest critters seen on screen recently. Interestingly the distributor's new trailer seems to emphasise the horror element even more than the original did whilst upping the expletive count. So expect further audiences leaving the cinema disgruntled.

It could be argued that, even more than comedy, horror is a subjective thing. What scares one person could equally produce giggles in another. Over the last couple of years most critics' best of... lists have included horror movies, The Babadook in 2014 and last years It Follows are both excellent examples of the more upmarket end of the genre.

The biggest influences on the more interesting horror movies these days seem to be the two Davids, Lynch and Cronenberg although, with the exception of Cronenberg's Rabid, none of these directors has actually made a traditional horror movie. Cronenberg's The Fly, one of his biggest box office successes, was unsettling, dripping with grue, but at no point did it attempt to scare or make the viewer jump out their seat. Lynch's Lost Highway manages to be supremely creepy without using any of the staple techniques of the horror filmmakers arsenal: crashing music stings, shock cuts etc. Both Davids have transcended the ghettoising that often happens to directors who embrace the horror genre achieving mainstream acceptance, which could be why they have so much influence on the younger generations of film makers.

Overall in the past horror has often been looked down upon unless it was made by a Hitchcock, Polanski or Kubrick. Fortunately this isn't the case any more. Whether it be Apocalypse Now edging close to Italian cannibal movie territory in its final act or more recently Bone Tomahawk taking inspiration in equal parts from The Searchers and The Hills Have Eyes, the cross pollination of horror with other genres has given it respectability. Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead's Spring was one of last year's underrated gems: Before Sunrise collides with Cronenbergian transformative body horror, icky and romantic in equal measures and well worth seeking out.

It's great that the distributors of The Witch are confident enough in the film that they are giving it a second chance in cinemas but will this increase its box office? The problem with The Witch isn't its marketing but the fact that it falls between two stools when it comes to easy pigeonholing: it's too ambiguous for the horror crowd and too horrific for a more mainstream audience. Depressingly The Boy, a generic, predictable 'scary dummy' movie which does use all the usual horror film cliches, has taken twice as much in two weeks as The Witch has in two months.

Maybe author Brian Keene has a point when he says "The Witch is a gorgeous, thoughtful, scary horror film that 90% of the people in the theatre with you will be too stupid to understand."

The new The Witch trailer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSBzSlBIY_s

Spring trailer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhNY1SVHLD0

The Boy trailer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPxybc_aJWU